This is a continuation of my problem with a paper I wrote in the early 1990's and have since lost the sources of my information. If anyone recognizes where the following information can be found please help me out. Also, if you have information of specific Chickasaw executions and a source where the information can be found I would be very grateful. Finally. I have several sources that claim that the Chickasaws only hanged one tribal member because that penalty was considered too horific except for the most terrible offenders, (Horse thiefs and crimes against nature) Despite this I have found an article that mentions another Chickasaw hanging near Stonewall Oklahoma. What is the story here? I would greatly appreciate any information anyone can give me about Specific Chickasaw executions or the Chickasaw justice system. Below is what I wrote in about 1993.

The Chickasaw Nation considered homicide, theft, blasphemy and adultery crimes the tribe could not tolerate. They practiced a mixed system of private and public punishment. The clan council of elders passed judgment on most crimes, but since retaliation and vengeance pervaded their legal customs the council usually simply served as a detached tribunal that made sure that the aggrieved family did their duty in exacting proper retribution. In cases of theft, the local clan council supervised the punishment of the offender by administering a public whipping.
In homicide cases, where private action represented a public duty, the relatives of the victim had a holy mandate to seek out and kill the slayer of their loved one. Some claimed that Chickasaw avengers would travel a thousand miles to satisfy the ghosts of their murdered relative. If the actual criminal could not be found, however, his brother could be substituted as a sort of sacrifice to the law of retaliation. This ended the matter even if the guilty brother reappeared at a later date.
The Chickasaws considered one form of blasphemy—nonobservance of the requirement that females isolate themselves during their menstrual period—as serious as homicide. If a Chickasaw woman violated this law of purity, she invited divine anger for committing a polluting sin. Violators of this traditional law of female purity suffered for any sudden sickness or death that might occur among her people.
Upon reaching Oklahoma, the Chickasaw tribe found that government authorities in Washington had combined their people with the Choctaw tribe and made them subject to Choctaw law. Unsatisfied with this arrangement, tribal leaders eventually won the fight for their own nation. They quickly established a constitutional government with a judicial system that contained a supreme court, a circuit court and four county courts. Local government in the Chickasaw Nation included a sheriff and constables for each county. Their constitution contained a bill of rights.

I would tend to think that the information you are looking for can be found in the Oklahoma History Center, Indian Archives. This would most likely include an on site search of documents on Chickasaw jurisprudence after removal. The contact person there is Bill Welgie, a fountain of information.

You might also want to check with the Chickasaw Nation headquarters in Tishomingo to see if they have any historical information on hand in their archives. Good luck.

Part of the answer to your question can be found in Arrell Gibson’s “The Chickasaws” at p. 154 and 254ff. At p. 22 she states: “Proscribed actions in Chickasaw law included homicide, theft, blasphemy, and adultery. The tribe practiced a mixed system of private and public punishment for law violation…Since retaliation and vengeance pervaded their legal customs, more often than not the council simply served as a detached tribunal to see that the aggrieved or his family did their duty in exacting proper retribution…In homicide cases, where private action was a public duty, the relatives of the victim had a holy mandate to seek out and kill the slayer. If he could not be found, his brother could be substituted as a sort of sacrifice to the law of retaliation. This ended the matter.” Gibson cited H. B. Cushman, History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez Indians.” At p. 402, Cushman states: “The ancient Chickasaws had laws only…First, the law of murder, which placed the slayer wholly and exclusively in the hands of the oldest brother of the slain, who never failed to execute the law, the standing verdict of which was ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”—death. In case the deceased had no brother or brothers, then the next nearest and oldest male relative became the self-appointed executioner. Nor did anyone, not even the nearest relations of the slayer, interfere in the matter in any way whatever—either to assist or oppose. If the slayer fled, which was very seldom if ever the case, his oldest brother, and if he had no brother, then the next nearest and oldest relative in the male line was slain in his place, after which he could return in safety and without fear of molestation…On account of this rigid and inexorable custom…murders were very few and far between…”

Thanks Again Tower!!